A+L - double charge?

coops1889

HiI have an Alliance and Leicester Premier Direct Account with an O/D limit of £1,700.In September, I went overdrawn by £40 against cleared funds (I'd paid a cheque in, and written another out for the same amount not realising that I would be charged - I wrongly assumed that because the uncleared funds were there, I'd be OK - lesson learnt). A £25 'Unpaid Item' fee appeared on my account which customer services told me was for going over my limit as discussed above.The description of this charge on my statement has been changed to a 'Payment Review Fee' - what is that?I have now also been charged a £25 Unauthorised Overdraft Fee. This seems to me like I've been charged twice for the same thing. Anything I should know before I ring customer services?Thanks in advance

Milarky

No two separate charges in fact. One would be for the 'bounced' cheque itself. The other would be because the cheque item attempted to take you past your allowed overdraft.

They like to get two bites of the cherry.. especially as these will be the last bites for a while... now that they have had to restructure (reduce) their charges on things like this and introduce daily overdrawn charges of 50p because of the threat from the OFT to do something through this court case

(Oh yeah! just like when Hans Blix gets 'angry' with Kim Il Sung in 'Team America' - that's how much the banks really fear the regulator!)

YorkshireBoy

Milarky wrote: »

They like to get two bites of the cherry.. especially as these will be the last bites for a while... now that they have had to restructure (reduce) their charges on things like this and introduce daily overdrawn charges of 50p because of the threat from the OFT to do something through this court case

But the 50p per day (max £5 per month) charge is purely the cost of using your agreed overdraft facility and replaces the old debit interest element. At least that's my understanding from reading http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/currentaccounts/index.asp?page=all-rates&RateTable=premier-direct&ct=curraccrates

In the OP's case though, there will still be the £5 per day 'exceeding overdraft limit fee' (which I don't believe is capped like the 'overdraft usage fee' is), and of course the new 'payment review fee' at £25 per item to be added. Furthermore, A&L say (in the link above) that "You will not receive a separate letter telling you about the fees which will be deducted from your account."

lulupense

I got the new charge structure with my statement last month. Go into your overdraft and it is 50p per day for up to ten days, they cap it at a fiver which I suppose isn't too bad. But I can't help thinking that will be £60.00 a year for a £200.00 rolling loan. That is criminal!

Dithering_Dad

I've just noticed A&L have been helping themselves to £5 a month from my account as a charge because I have left it dormant for a while. It did have a couple of hundred quid in there (a bit less than that now). They started these charges about 3 months ago but neglected to tell me, so I'd had £20 taken before I logged on and realised.

Needless to say, I'll be closing this account down shortly.